Is the Life History Calendar a Valid Measure of Child Custody Loss among Birth Mothers with Serious Mental Illness?

• Published in: Social work research Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 53 - 57
• Main Authors: Hollingsworth, Leslie Doty, MacFarlane, Peter, Rassi, Stephen L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford National Association of Social Workers 01.03.2011; Oxford University Press
• Subjects: Adopted children; Arizona; Bipolar disorder; Calendars; Child custody; Child Welfare Services; Childbirth; Childhood mental disorders; Childrearing Practices; Children; Custody of children; Data collection; Data entry; Decisions; Demographic aspects; Demography; Females; Foster care; Health facilities; Health services; Human subjects; Interviews; Kentucky; Legal custody; Life histories; Life History; Longitudinal Studies; Major depressive disorder; Mental disorders; Mental Illness; Mentally ill; Mentally ill mothers; Mothers; Parent Rights; Parental rights; Parenting; Parents; Parents & parenting; Psychological aspects; Qualitative research; R&D; Research & development; RESEARCH NOTE; Schizophrenia; Social aspects; Social work; United States
• ISSN: 1070-5309; 1545-6838
• DOI: 10.1093/swr/35.1.53

As of October 9, 2009, 463,000 children were receiving care in the public foster care system (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2009). Parental rights to 75,000 (16%) had been terminated. Parents with serious mental illness (SMI) are confronted with increased risk of involvement with the child welfare system and of having their children placed in out-of-home care (Park, Solomon, & Mandell, 2006; Sands, Koppelman, & Solomon, 2004). In fact, five states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Kentucky, and North Dakota) and Puerto Rico list mental illness or disability as grounds for not providing reasonable efforts toward reunification (Kaplan, Kottsieper, Scott, Salzer, & Solomon, 2009). The reality of threats to the parenting status of people with mental illness, particularly the influence of stigma on policy and services decisions, makes this an important area for social work research. Because much of the research on custody loss among women with SMI is dependent on self-reports, valid measures are imperative. In the present study, we were interested in discovering whether a Life History Calendar (LHC) would provide a valid measure of custody loss. Using a sample from a longitudinal study of women with SMI who were parents, we compared their responses on an LHC with their responses to a standard structured interview questionnaire. Adapted from the source document.